Two years ago this week, the WORLD was shocked and disgusted by the public beheading of twenty-one Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya. If there had been any doubts, it demonstrated once and for all just how evil the radical Islamic regime called ISIS truly was. Well THIS week, Beshir Kamel went on television and thanked those same terrorists for not editing out the last words of his brother and the other Egyptian men just before their execution. “Lord, Jesus Christ,” were their final words just before they were slaughtered because of their faith. The courage and integrity of their witness only strengthened Kamel’s faith. “We are proud to have this number of people from our village who have become martyrs,” he said after his brother’s murder. “Since the Roman era, Christians have been martyrs and have learned to handle everything that comes our way. This only makes us stronger in our faith, because the Bible told us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us.” He further explained that his mother is prepared to welcome any of the men involved in her son’s beheading into her house. If one of them were to visit her, she would “ask God to open his eyes, because he was the reason her son entered the kingdom of heaven.” The Christian host then invited Kamel himself to pray for his brother’s murderers on television. This was Kamel’s prayer: “Dear God, please open their eyes to be saved and to quit their ignorance and the wrong teachings they were taught.” 

It may be hard to believe but there are more persecuted Christians in the world TODAY than there were in the early days of Christianity. What makes their faith all the more remarkable is that there is really nothing HARDER in the world than to love those who perhaps may hate you or even go so far as to want to harm you or possibly see you dead. What MAKES it so hard is that once you’ve been hurt or victimized by someone, your first and most natural impulse is to strike back and get even at the person. You’ve been wounded to the core and the only way to redress that hurt is to respond in kind. Unfortunately, this only sets in motion a series of retaliatory attacks which over time grows in intensity until one finally gives up or is beaten down and defeated. As Gandhi once put it, “if we were all to live by ‘an eye for an eye,’ the whole WORLD would eventually be blind.”

But forgiveness is ALSO hard because it often means extending pardon to persons who don’t DESERVE it, to individuals who haven’t EARNED it. It releases them from culpability or blame when in the back of our minds we know that they are STILL guilty and the very thought of that makes us sick. In his book The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal, the world's foremost Nazi hunter, told how in 1944 he was a young Polish prisoner on his way to a concentration camp. He had looked on helplessly as Nazi soldiers forced his mother into a freight car crammed with elderly Jewish women, and as they shot his grandmother to death on the stairway of her home. Altogether, 89 of his Jewish relatives would die at the hands of the Nazis. One bright sunny day, in a hospital for German casualties, he found himself alone with a dying German soldier in a dark, musty room. White gauze covered the man's face, with openings cut out for mouth, nose, and ears. "My name is Karl," said a strained voice that came from somewhere within the bandages. "I must tell you of this horrible deed - tell you because you are a Jew."

Karl told of his Catholic childhood and the faith he had lost in the Hitler Youth Corps. He spoke of his service in the army and his recent return, severely wounded, from the Russian front. Finally he told of something that had happened in Ukrainian territory. Booby traps had killed 30 soldiers in Karl's unit. As an act of revenge they had rounded up 300 Jews, herded them into a three-story house, doused it with gasoline, and fired grenades at it. Karl and his men encircled the house, their guns drawn to shoot anyone who tried to escape. "The screams from the house were horrible," he said. "I saw a man with a small child in his arms. His clothes were alight. By his side stood a woman, doubtless the mother of the child. With his free hand the man covered the child's eyes - then he jumped into the street. Seconds later the mother followed. Then from the other windows fell burning bodies. We shot..."

Karl described other atrocities, but kept circling back to the image of that young boy with black hair and dark eyes falling from a building, target practice for the SS rifles. "I am left here with my guilt," he concluded at last. "I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while I have been waiting for death, time and time again I have longed to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn't know if there were any Jews left...I know what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer I cannot die in peace.” Simon Wiesenthal, an architect in his early twenties, now a prisoner dressed in a shabby uniform marked with the yellow Star of David, said he felt the entire weight of his race bearing down on him. He stared out the window at the sunlit courtyard. He looked at the eyeless heap of bandages lying in the bed. "At last I made up my mind," he writes, "and without a word I left the room."

Such a story raises in the starkest manner the whole subject of forgiveness and leaves us begging for answers. The scene in the hospital room haunted Wiesenthal and he asked fellow prisoners what he should have done. He also inquired of rabbis and priests. Finally, when he wrote up the story 20 years later, he sent it to the brightest ethical minds he knew - Jew, Gentile, Catholic, Protestant, and irreligious. "What would you have done in my place?" he asked. "Did I do right?" Of the 32 men and women who responded, only 6 said he had done wrong in not forgiving the German. Most thought he had done right. "What moral or legal authority did he have to forgive injuries done to someone else?" they asked. Some even questioned the whole concept of forgiveness.

The fact is that by holding on to our grudges, REGARDLESS of how slight, they have a tendency to grow and spread like a cancer to where they affect all our decisions, alter our disposition, and may EVEN DESTROY us if we let them. To be able to forgive really requires nothing short of a MIRACLE for the source of it ultimately resides NOT WITHIN us but rather from somewhere OUTSIDE of us, from somewhere well BEYOND us. But WHERE can the source of such pardon and love be found if not in ourselves? 

That’s where this morning’s text comes in, the first of Jesus’ “Seven Last Words from the Cross.” It is possible that this first word was uttered as they were driving the nails into his flesh. The Roman historian Seneca wrote that those who were crucified cursed the day of their birth, their executioners, their mothers, and even spat on those who looked upon them. Cicero recorded that at times it was necessary to cut out the tongues of those where were crucified to stop their terrible blasphemies. It had to come as a great surprise that the very man they were putting to death was pardoning them, exonerating them of their actions. But then, who was Christ FORGIVING? The soldiers who were simply doing their duty? Caiaphas and the rest of the religious establishment who were trained from their earliest years in the Torah and the Law of God? It was their job to look for and prepare the Jewish people for the advent of “the Promised One.” But they were so blinded by their jealousy of him and their zeal to preserve their power and traditions that they put him to death INSTEAD. Perhaps it was the crowds who showed how fickle they could be by welcoming him earlier in the week with shouts of “Hosanna, hosanna!” and yet would be screaming “Kill him! Kill him!” a few days later? Or was it the Roman Governor over the region—Pontius Pilate—who had been reprimanded by Caesar in the past and could not afford another riot under his watch? However, upon meeting Jesus, he gradually grew convinced of his innocence. Yet, to satisfy the crowd and save his job, he gave in to their demands and ordered his execution REGARDLESS. Maybe Jesus was pardoning Judas Iscariot for his greed, for betraying him for thirty pieces of silver; or perhaps Peter, his most trusted lieutenant, who denied him three times, or maybe it was the REST of the disciples who fled for fear of their OWN lives? It seemed EVERYONE had SOME responsibility for the death of Christ,that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was in need of forgiveness for the part he had played in the arrest and execution of God’s Son.

The law of the ancient world was the same as TODAY- “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Jesus, however, taught early on in his ministry, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” THIS was his morality, the morality of his Heavenly Father and of the kingdom he had come to serve. When the same persons he had come to seek and to save had done their worst, Jesus prayed, not for justice, but for mercy; he pleaded that his enemies would be exempt from the just consequences of their evil deeds. Hence, as nails were being driven into his body and the pain was at its worst, one heard declarations of pardon and forgiveness come from his lips instead of curses and words of condemnation.

He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?” But was that true? Were they INDEED ignorant of their wrongdoing? Of COURSE not! The Sanhedrin KNEW FULL WELL they had bribed false witnesses, Pilate KNEW he had condemned an innocent man, and Judas and the REST of his followers KNEW they had betrayed and abandoned their leader and their friend. Not one of them could not hide behind a veil of ignorance; there were no mitigating circumstances to excuse their guilt- the blame was to be shared EQUALLY by them all. What they did NOT know, however, was the ENORMITY of their crime, that the one they were putting to death was the Son of God- he who had loved them and come to save them in the FIRST PLACE. Their hearts were corrupt but what was lacking was a full understanding of the MAGNITUDE of their sin. And yet, even sins of IGNORANCE need to be forgiven for if they WERE ignorant, it was simply because they did not WANT to know; they WANTED to remain blind- their blindness being a SPIRITUAL kind, a condition of the HEART than one of the eyes.

When you get right down to it, the fact is that we are ALL complicit in the death of Christ. EACH of us in our own way, through our own moral cowardice and lack of adherence to the truth, EACH of us in our jealousy and envy of each other, EACH of us in our selfishness and greed placed those nails in his body and killed him- deliberately and decisively. You see, it wasn't just Caiaphas and the Jews who put Christ to death, it wasn't just Pilate and the political powers of that age, or even the traitorous Judas. Rather, it was hypocrites like you and me who murdered Jesus, nailing him to that cross. We can't excuse ourselves and place all the blame on any two or three individuals for that responsibility must be shared by every person ever born into this world.

Sure the moral cowardice of Pontius Pilate helped nail Jesus to that tree, but so does the moral cowardice that you and I exhibit when WE are forced to make a decision between some issue of honor and principle, and that of personal expediency. None of us ever wants to rock the boat, none of us wants to upset the system even when the system may be wrong or corrupt because it just may jeopardize OUR jobs, OUR security, OUR futures. Let's face it, Pilate is every bit ourselves and his cowardice is our cowardice as well.

The jealousy and envy of Caiaphas and the high priests helped put Jesus to death, but so does all the jealousy and envy WE feel at the success and good fortune of others. We’re every bit as protective of our OWN status and way of life as those religious leaders were and just as threatened when others put them at risk. And our response is really no different- we will preserve our authority and self-respect at any cost- ANY cost! Yes, Caiaphas is every one of us and his jealousy is every bit our own.

Yes, the greed of Judas Iscariot helped crucify Jesus Christ, but so does all the greed in our OWN lives. Selfishness and greed taint every heart and tinge every passion; they infect every one of our thoughts and motives so that if we thought we could steal something from someone and know with complete assurance that we would get away with it, we would probably do it. Again, Judas was not alone in betraying his Master for EVERYONE of us has betrayed him at different times. EACH of us is a Judas and HIS greed is very much our OWN. In no way can we indict the Romans or the Jews or even Judas for the greatest murder in the history of the world without ALSO seeing OURSELVES as implicated in his death. The blood that Pilate could not wash from his hands stains our own hands this morning and only the blood from ANOTHER source- the blood that flowed from that cross, the blood of Christ himself--can ever make them clean. 

I opened my sermon with a story that underscores the difficulty of extending forgiveness to another, ESPECIALLY when the sin committed is so heinous and grievous. Well I close with a story which illustrates how the more aware we are of the mercy and pardon we OURSELVES have received, the easier it becomes to forgive OTHERS who are just as undeserving as WE have been. Back in the summer of 1975, I had the privilege of hearing Corrie Ten Boom speak at the Manhattan Civic Center in New York City. Corrie Ten Boom was the Dutch holocaust survivor who helped a number of Jews escape the Nazis during World War II. In her bestselling book The Hiding Place, she tells a remarkable story that underscores the power of God’s grace and the miracle that is forgiveness. Following the war, she became a public speaker that took her all over the world. Following a Sunday church service in Munich, Germany, she found herself face to face with an old S.S. guard who had watched and sneered at the frightened women prisoners while they were forced to take delousing showers in front of him at the camp. Suddenly, it was all there again- the roomful of mocking men, the pain and shame of it. 

The man came up to Corrie, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein….To think that, as you say, he has washed my sins away.” He put out his hand to her. It was way too much for her; she kept her hand frozen at her side. Forgiveness comes hard for anyone but it seemed especially outrageous to expect it of her. She writes how at that moment, the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through her system. She struggled to raise her hand. She could not. She felt nothing, not the slightest spark of forgiveness. So she breathed a silent prayer. “Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me YOUR forgiveness.” Corrie was touched then and there by the One who can forgive everyone EVERYTHING. She somehow felt forgiven, and in the freedom of being forgiven she raised her arm and took the hand of the man who had done unforgivable things to her.

Such is the power of forgiveness to remove lingering hurts, to destroy devastating secrets, and to reconcile old enemies. Forgiveness is at bottom “a new beginning,” an act that makes everything fresh again. It does not always take away the hurt nor does it deny the past injury. It merely refuses to let them stand in the way of a new start. The answer to all life’s greatest and deepest problems begins when we realize that it does not lie within ourselves or our will power but OUTSIDE ourselves- in Jesus Christ ALONE. Thus, we only have to accept it and live by it. Through our Lord’s single act of forgiveness, every OTHER spiritual grace now begins to flow. When we are forgiven, we know that we belong to God, and when we belong to God, there can be no injury or sorrow that CANNOT be overcome! Speaking for myself, as one who wanted nothing more than to be forgiven for a lifetime of selfish and stupid decisions and finding it impossible to absolve MYSELF, our Lord’s cry from that cross- “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” is what lured me to that cross in the first place and it CONTINUES to keep me there. His offer of unconditional pardon and mercy in this his darkest hour STILL remains the most wonderful news that I (and I suspect YOU) shall ever hear. Amen and amen.